Tiny Anthems and Big Chevys (Sans Levees)

A few months ago, the Little Ones, a Los Angeles band, released a six-song mini-album that is seeming more and more like one of the year’s most lovable indie-rock CD’s. It’s called “Sing Song,” and the members released it themselves, though they certainly won’t have to do that again (unless they want to); three recent New York concerts, the band’s first here, were filled with eager listeners and scouts. The singer, Edward Nolan Reyes, has one of those gentle, sighing voices (think of Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie, only a bit less pretty and a lot less melodramatic); the guitarist, Ian Moreno, often adds high, unexpectedly sprightly lines. (The two used to play together in the band Sunday’s Best.) At the end of a short CD of infectious but unassuming songs, the band alights on a pint-size anthem, “Heavy Hearts Brigade.” Mr. Reyes sings, “We swear our lives to the bold and free”; the words come out with a shrug, not a flourish. Visit wearethelittleones.com and shrug along.

Yola Da Great

The Atlanta rapper T. I. is having a banner year, and his label, Grand Hustle, isn’t doing too badly either. T. I.’s protégé Young Dro has given the label a hit with “Shoulder Lean,” yet another catchy hip-hop track built around some catchy choreography. And the label recently signed Yola Da Great, a promising Atlanta loudmouth who has been appearing on mixtapes with his track “Ain’t Gonna Let Up.” There’s a surprisingly jaunty steel-drum beat, which gives Yola a chance to deliver some singsong verses about perseverance in the face of “them haters.” He even offers them advice: “Give ya brain a bath.” Will they prevent him from wearing the jerseys of his choice or smoking marijuana? They will not.

Photo

Joanna has a cover of a Dashboard Confessional song.Credit
Ari Mitchelson

Joanna

An aspiring pop star, Joanna has the support of MTV and an album (“This Crazy Love”) scheduled for August release. And her MySpace page (myspace.com/joanna) contains a pleasant surprise: a straightforward yet complicated cover of “Screaming Infidelities,” the emo classic by Dashboard Confessional. In the original, a boy drowned in self-pity while ranting about a girl: “I’m missing your laugh, how did it break?/And when did your smile begin to look fake?” Joanna doesn’t change the lyrics, but you might find that her voice alters the story line. The original had an undercurrent of meanness; the complaints — “You’re not alone/And you’re not discreet” — were also insults. But can a girl insult a boy by accusing him of indiscretion? Do emo breakup songs have to be a little bit mean? And if so, does Joanna’s version qualify?

Popcore

This Swedish directing threesome makes commercials, and they say they have a political documentary in the works. But they also have an unusual hobby: they make eerie, unsettling music videos for the Vans Warped Tour set. (Watch them at mtv2.com.) Popcore directed the nightmarish, vaguely surgical video for “The Latest Plague” (Epitaph) by From First to Last, a band that recently dropped out of this summer’s tour. (The singer needed a throat operation, fittingly enough.) And now comes a new Popcore video for Underoath, a raw-throated Christian band from Florida. In the campy video for “Writing on the Walls” (Tooth & Nail), the band members seem to be trapped in the walls of a spooky, old-fashioned house, though it soon becomes clear that trapped between the walls is the safest place to be.

Trent Willmon

They shouldn’t. They said they wouldn’t. But they will. You know the story, and Trent Willmon, a sometime cowboy, tells yet another version in his winsome country single “On Again Tonight.” It’s a grand, waltzing song, and the chorus doesn’t start subtly: arena-size drums kick in, and he declares, “I wish you would come over.” But as singers and hopeful hooker-uppers alike know, sometimes success comes down to finding the right phrase. Here’s the one Mr. Willmon sings: “I need your on-again-off-again on, again, tonight.” Who could say no?

Cadillac Don and J-Money

The Mississippi duo Cadillac Don and J-Money made a regional hit by making a simple sandwich. They rapped about peanut butter: the leathery tan interior of a souped-up sedan. And they rapped about jelly: the car’s bright, shiny paint job. Put it together in a refrain, atop a tinkling and slightly ominous keyboard loop, and you’ve got “Inside Peanut Butter, Outside Jelly.” It’s the kind of leisurely but insistent hip-hop track that can hypnotize even the least suggestible listener. When they drawl it, that titular phrase rhymes with the next one: “Seb’m days of the week, seb’m different Chevys.” The song has been winning fans in the Deep South all year, and now Asylum Records, part of the Warner Music Group, is trying to take the sandwich national. If these two aren’t rewarded with a hit album, here’s hoping they at least get a cozy sponsorship deal. Chevrolet? Smucker’s? Skippy? No doubt they’re entertaining all serious offers.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page AR26 of the New York edition with the headline: Tiny Anthems And Big Chevys (Sans Levees). Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe